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When would you remove one of your caches?

Forget about all of the obvious reasons. What I'm curious about is, assuming there is nothing wrong with the cache or the location or your ability to maintain it and no one has asked you to remove it, when do you feel it is okay for an owner to just remove and archive one of their caches?

My opinion is practically never. This hasn't been an issue around this area yet, not that I've seen. But I've seen it elsewhere that it is not uncommon for a cache owner to remove and archive a cache just because they're bored with it or they feel it's run it course or lived out its usefulness.

In my opinion once the cache is posted, approved, and active for all the world to see it, it stops being just yours. It becomes something more. In a way it becomes the property of and a part of the geocaching community as a whole. It is out there for all to see and it may hold special expectations for another geocacher who has yet to find it. It may also hold special memories for those geocachers who have done it and hope to share it someday with others who haven't .

So what do you think, is it acceptable for an owner to just up and remove a cache?

If a cache is in good condition and finders are enjoying a cache, I really hate to see a cache go. But at the same time, the owner is supposed to be maintaining it, and if he's bored with it he probably would not do that.

So, weighing the options, I'd say if an owner wants to archive a cache he sould do so, so that someone that is not bored with it can hide one there.

Many of the people who archive them have many hides, and archiving is easier than maintaining, which is sad.

I can see what you're saying about a bored owner not maintaining a cache and that makes a lot of sense. But why not offer it up for adoption so someone who is interested in it can take it over rather than just pulling the plug on it?

I guess part of what I'm trying to say is that hiding a cache is a long term commitment. It goes beyong just maintaining the cache until it now longer interests you. It is a commitment to the geocaching community that the cache will be there, ready to be discovered and enjoyed until such time as the community no longer wants it there.

Nope, you make perfect sense. Adopting is great when it can happen. The main issue adopting caches now is that usually the adopter wants to hide it in a different location, and gc.com does not let you do that without some paperwork (Unless it's real close to the original). And once you move it to a new spot, it's pretty much a new cache and previous finders can not log a find on the new location if it's the same cache. (Well, technically they can't)

Worst case, someone hides a new one in the exact same spot and uses the same name as the previous one. All that's lost are the logs, which could be linked to in the cache description.

THETEAM has a pattern of revisiting site and logging multiple finds, among other much worse actions. I would suggest that others not delete any posts by them until the powers that be deal with the problem. We may want to preserve evidence.

Fortunately, all logs you make to a cache are saved - they are never deleted when you "delete" them - they just don't show. TPTB can access them at any time.

Originally Posted by Geomaineiacs

THETEAM has a pattern of revisiting site and logging multiple finds, among other much worse actions. I would suggest that others not delete any posts by them until the powers that be deal with the problem. We may want to preserve evidence.

So, I pulled it because there was nothing decent in it. So I would like to restock it.

Yeah, but you are planning to put it back, right? That's not what I was referring to. That's a simple downtime to do maintenance and I think that's not only acceptable, it is expected.

I'm talking about when someone just up and permenently archives and removes their cache without any warning or reason given other than something like, "Cache removed and archived" or "I think this one has run its course" or "This one no longer interests me" or whatever.